The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A multicore processor is a single computing component with two or more independent processing units, called cores. A voltage regulator that is external to a multicore processor, e.g., a motherboard or other external voltage regulator, may be coupled to a power source and may power a multicore processor. The external system may govern maximum current (Icc Max) supplied to the multicore processor to prevent physical damage to components of the system, e.g., a packaging interface associated with the multicore processor that is based on controlled collapse chip connection (C4) bumps.
For instance, the external system, e.g., the external voltage regulator, may enter an “overcurrent” state responsive to monitoring current utilization, which may cause the external voltage regulator to shutoff. To avoid the external system entering the “overcurrent” state, an internal controller of the multicore processor, e.g., a power control unit (PCU), may be configured to constrain frequency and voltage settings for the cores to values selected so that a threshold corresponding to the overcurrent state will not be exceeded even in the case of execution of a worst possible virus.
The PCU is typically configured to constrain voltage and frequency to these settings at all times, which means in normal application operation (i.e. not the worst possible virus), the multicore processor may utilize only a fraction of the threshold of the external system, and accordingly may perform at only a fraction of its performance capability in the normal application operation.